Schools are expected to contribute to the education of children, to fit them to become full members in their communities. However, it is not always necessarily clear or agreed upon as to what abilities will best promote this integration. The aim of this panel is to explore how artistic education contributes to the education of children as citizens and creative individuals, who approach the world via different languages and discourses that allow them to elaborate multiple ways of looking at it, as well as to generate new interpretations, values and ideas in their in everyday life.
The DAP programme (Didactica del Arte y del Patrimonio, -Art and Education Programme-) has been a great success from the point of view of genuine and efficient institutional cooperation. Fundación Arte Viva, the organization that created the programme, along with the local education authority, Consejeria de Educación de la Comunidad de Madrid, 11 state schools, four local and international museums, including as the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Patrimonio Nacional, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) New York and last but not least, our academic partner, the Universidad de Alcalá (Grupo de Investigación Imágenes, Palabras e Ideas, Departamento de Psicopedagogía y Ed. Fca.)
These institutions have worked together for two years in the development of a programme whose main objective has been to link every possible sector of society with a common interest: the integration of every student from several of our most our deprived state schools in a programme traditionally targeted at selected audiences.
The methodology has been adapted to and complemented by new educational strategies adapted to the Spanish educational system.
This programme began during the academic year 2005/2006, and was implemented in 11 public schools belonging to Comunidad de Madrid by 41 teachers, reaching 1,200 pupils aged 9-12.Another highlight of the programme that needs to be considered in order to understand not only its educational impact but also its social effect, is how it was based on collaboration by several institutions and participants, particularly public schools, museums, national organizations and the University, building communication and understanding between all these different agents, in order to attain a common goal.
The presentations included in this panel show how multiple and multidisciplinary perspectives of the programme have been constructed collectively in the course of a school year, and the results obtained when children and adults think and discuss among themselves while looking at and discovering works of art. The main goal of the programme can be summarized as first, attempting to favour and develop the skills that children use when appreciating and analyzing an artistic work, and secondly, promoting the development of critical thinking processes. On the basis of these general objectives, a set of specific goals were defined, as illustrated by the following examples, which have been some of the most relevant aims of this programme:
- To develop critical thinking processes by generating the ability to reason on the basis of visual evidence found in a work of art.
- To use visual thinking as a tool to understand different cultures and ages (epochs), with the aim of promoting a reflexive, open and respectful identity.
- To favour friendship and exchanges by integrating children from specific cultural minorities.
- To strengthen links between educational and cultural institutions. In order to achieve these general goals, and also focus on more specific ones, it was necessary to conceive of the programme as a year-long curricular activity that could be implemented in the classroom by teachers, thus contributing to the teaching-learning process in a continuous manner. In that respect, DAP became one more subject in the classroom, that not only introduced the study of art, but that by proposing an innovative methodology contributed a new approach for teaching other subject matters, as well as relating the content of the programme to other curricular objective. Therefore, the programme is proposed as “a journey through art”, that takes both teachers and students in a road of discovery, that poses questions about identity, environment, cultural exchange and universal values through the exploration of works of art from all different time periods and styles. The programme is structured in terms of nine lessons, each focusing on a specific theme, seven of which take place in the classroom, and the remaining two in the local participating museums.
In our presentation, we consider not only the different contexts, but also how each of them orients specific and complementary ways of looking among the participants. We discuss the following aspects. First, the perspective from a methodological standpoint, which serves as the ground for its design, development and implementation is introduced by Gracia Lafuente “Art Education and Children’s Development”. Secondly, the art experts who designed and elaborated the educational materials discuss the creation process in their presentation “Multiple considerations for the elaboration of a curricular artistic appreciation programme: from the creation of the materials to their application”. Third, we explore “Adult collaboration and guided participation: working according to the Vygotskian Zone of Proximal Development” by focusing on people who act as practitioners; we consider the perspectives of teachers and educators when they work with children in schools and museums. Finally, “Following “DAP”: a qualitative evaluation process using NVIVO 7” examines the evaluation programme process carried out by the research team of the university of Alcalá, acting as non-participant observers and adopting an ethnographic theoretical and methodological perspective.